Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg Law with June Grasso from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: Elon Mosk is close to acquiring Twitter. Many are wondering,
Speaker 1: and some are concerned about what his absolutist view of
Speaker 1: the First Amendment will mean for the social media platform.
Speaker 1: Most described his outlook during a Ted interview this month.
Speaker 1: We want to be just very reluctant to delete things
Speaker 1: and have just just be very cautious with with with
Speaker 1: permanent bands. Uh, you know, timeouts I think are better
Speaker 1: or my guest his First Amendment law expert Eugene Follick,
Speaker 1: a professor at u c l A Law School. Some
Speaker 1: people might confuse First Amendment rights with speech on social
Speaker 1: media platforms like Twitter. Can you explain free speech in
Speaker 1: the context of social media sites. Sure, we have this
Speaker 1: tendency to use First Amendment and be speech interchangeably, but well,
Speaker 1: they're related, they're different. The First Amendment is a constraint
Speaker 1: on the government. Remember the first word of the First
Speaker 1: Amment is Congress. Congress shall make no law. That's been
Speaker 1: applied through the Fourteenth Amendment to states. The Fourteenth Amend
Speaker 1: instructs with no state shall and also to local governments
Speaker 1: and the like, which are agencies of state. But basically
Speaker 1: only the government is bound by the First Amendment. Only
Speaker 1: the government can violate the First Amendment. So, for example,
Speaker 1: if your employer fires you for your speech, or for
Speaker 1: your political activity, or even for your vote, that's not
Speaker 1: a First Amendment violation. Likewise, if let's say a private
Speaker 1: university expels a student because of the student's speech, that's
Speaker 1: not a First Amendment violation. Freedom of speech is a
Speaker 1: broader concept potentially, so you might say, for example, that universities,
Speaker 1: especially secular universities that describe themselves as devoted to free inquiry,
Speaker 1: should comply with free speech principles. Maybe not every maybe
Speaker 1: not in the classroom where the professor gets to decide
Speaker 1: whom to call on and what issues to discuss, but
Speaker 1: for example, that the university private university shouldn't expel a
Speaker 1: student because of a speech. In fact, in California, there's
Speaker 1: a state statute that bans private universities except religious ones,
Speaker 1: from imposing speech codes on their students. I think that
Speaker 1: statute is a free speech protection, even though it's not
Speaker 1: a First Amendment protection. Likewise, you might say, maybe private
Speaker 1: employers shouldn't be able to fire their employees for their speech,
Speaker 1: especially maybe off the job speech, especially maybe speech about politics. Again,
Speaker 1: in my own California, private employers are not allowed to
Speaker 1: fire employees based on the employees political activity, which is
Speaker 1: defined very broadly to cover advocacy not just of candidates,
Speaker 1: but also of ideological causes. Quite a few other states
Speaker 1: also protect private employees against employers. That way, you might
Speaker 1: say that's a free speech protection. Likewise, if you think
Speaker 1: back historically to say the Hollywood Blacklist of the nineteen fifties,
Speaker 1: where people who were viewed as having been communists, to
Speaker 1: have been in affiliated with communist related organizations were blacklisted
Speaker 1: from jobs. You know that wasn't the First Amendment violation,
Speaker 1: but you might have said that that was bad for
Speaker 1: the freedom of speech and maybe a violation of free
Speaker 1: speech principles. So likewise, people talk about free speech on
Speaker 1: social media platform social media platforms or not. The government
Speaker 1: they don't violate the First Amendment if they banned people
Speaker 1: based on their speech, but you might argue that they
Speaker 1: ought to respect free speech because that's what our American
Speaker 1: democracy requires. So I think it's an important question how
Speaker 1: much and what kinds of free speech ought to be
Speaker 1: allowed whether the law should require such protections or whether
Speaker 1: it just ought to be allowed as a matter of
Speaker 1: the platform decision on these privately owned platforms, so must.
Speaker 1: In trying to explain his position on freedom of speech,
Speaker 1: he tweeted, quote, I simply mean that which matches the law?
Speaker 1: Is he showing tay in thinking that it's a simple
Speaker 1: concept like that? Well, I think you said, He tweeted that, Well,
Speaker 1: you can't capture even First Amendment rules in two characters
Speaker 1: or less, and you certainly can't capture the possible differences
Speaker 1: between free speech and First Amendment rules in Twitter day
Speaker 1: characters or less. Just to give an example, I think
Speaker 1: it's necessary for any platform to do something about spam.
Speaker 1: And there may be certain kinds of things which are
Speaker 1: protected by the First amend and certain kinds of mass
Speaker 1: mailings and mass posts that a platform might say, you know,
Speaker 1: they just degrade too much the user's ability to see
Speaker 1: real material that they want to see. That therefore, we
Speaker 1: need to block spam, even if spam is not illegal,
Speaker 1: or at least even kinds of spams that are not illegal. Likewise,
Speaker 1: you could imagine a platform Twitter is not one of them.
Speaker 1: Twitter actually allows pornography at least of certain kinds. But
Speaker 1: you can imagine a platform saying, you know, we're not
Speaker 1: going to allow pornography because there's too much of a
Speaker 1: risk of people incidentally stumble across it, and therefore we're
Speaker 1: just going to ban it. Likewise, Twitter, as I understand it,
Speaker 1: that allows pornography basically requires it to be labeled and
Speaker 1: kind of gives people warnings before showing it. Again, that's
Speaker 1: not a legal requirement. That's just Twitter's decisions. So there
Speaker 1: are possible differences. This having been said, you know, if
Speaker 1: you want to kind of take a first cut, admittedly
Speaker 1: oversimplified view, you might say, yes, our view should be
Speaker 1: the Twitter should generally speaking protect free speech at least
Speaker 1: so long as it's not illegal speech. So, no, we
Speaker 1: won't host child pornography. No, we won't host things that
Speaker 1: are clearly conspiracy to commit crimes or kind of accounts
Speaker 1: that are being used for criminal conspiracy. Let's say we
Speaker 1: won't host copyright infringement because that's illegal. But pretty much
Speaker 1: all other things, generally speaking, we're going to host. Maybe
Speaker 1: there'll be a few exceptions, but they really should be
Speaker 1: very narrow exceptions. It's a plausible way of thinking about these.
Speaker 1: Musk is a self described free speech absolutist, and in
Speaker 1: an interview at the TED Conference a couple of weeks ago,
Speaker 1: he said, if in doubt, if it's a gray area,
Speaker 1: let the tweet exist. If there's a lot of controversy,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't necessarily want to promote that speech. But I'm
Speaker 1: very reluctant to delete things and cautious with permanent fans.
Speaker 1: Some civil rights advocates are saying that that kind of
Speaker 1: uh minimally moderated Twitter can pose dangers or can harm women, minorities,
Speaker 1: and anyone out of favor with the establishment. What's your
Speaker 1: take on whether that kind of a minimally moderated Twitter
Speaker 1: poses any dangers. Well, of course, free speech poses dangerous
Speaker 1: Free speech is always posts. That's one reason why governments do,
Speaker 1: indeed try to restrict. And there's nothing special about those
Speaker 1: dangerous for the women, or as the minorities, or as
Speaker 1: to others. Just to give an example, there's been a
Speaker 1: lot of attacks on police officers recently, and some of
Speaker 1: them seem to be prompted by kind of very harsh
Speaker 1: criticism and kind of dehumanizing criticisms of police officers. And
Speaker 1: that's something that is a downside of speech. Likewise, for example,
Speaker 1: jahaddest kind of pro terrorists extremism is potentially harmful. Actually
Speaker 1: it's especially harmful to Muslims. Muslims are the main victims
Speaker 1: of extremist Islam, but it's also potentially harmful to others.
Speaker 1: Of course, speech is potentially harmful, But generally speaking, when
Speaker 1: it comes to the First Amendment, we take the view
Speaker 1: that on balance, it's better for everyone, and historically this
Speaker 1: has been especially important for various out of favor minority
Speaker 1: groups that speech be protected, because when speech is restricted,
Speaker 1: that keeps people from being able to argue about what
Speaker 1: they think are genuine wrongs and to advocate for for change,
Speaker 1: And that giving the government power to suppress speech of
Speaker 1: the government thinks is harmful will also suppress lot of
Speaker 1: speech that's valuable. So one could argue it's not necessarily
Speaker 1: obviously correct, but one could argue that the same thing
Speaker 1: applies not just to the government but immensely powerful platform
Speaker 1: operators like Facebook, Twitter and the like, that perhaps, on balance,
Speaker 1: just as it's good to deny the government the power
Speaker 1: to say we're not going to allow this kind of
Speaker 1: speech because it's harmful, Generally speaking, it's also good for
Speaker 1: these platforms to deny themselves this power to say, look,
Speaker 1: we we don't trust ourselves to make decisions about which
Speaker 1: speech is so harmful that should be prohibited, perhaps except
Speaker 1: for a really extraordinary things like, for example, child pornography
Speaker 1: or the life. So it seems to be a perfectly
Speaker 1: plausible position. Now, of course, you could argue that, no,
Speaker 1: the government ought to be banning more speech. The government
Speaker 1: ought to ban some people say, oh, the band racist speech,
Speaker 1: or ought to ban anti government speech or anti police speech,
Speaker 1: or whatever else. Lots of people have argued this in
Speaker 1: the past. Or you could say, no, no, the government
Speaker 1: shouldn't ban it. But instead of the government banning it,
Speaker 1: we should make sure that all of these influential platforms
Speaker 1: do what the government can't, which has suppressed speech that
Speaker 1: we think is harmful in various ways. You could argue that,
Speaker 1: But again, I think it's at least a plausible position
Speaker 1: to say that just as we don't trust the government
Speaker 1: to make these decisions, we shouldn't trust Mark Zuckerberg to
Speaker 1: make these decisions, or even Elon Musk to make these decisions.
Speaker 1: On a case by case basis, that maybe it's better
Speaker 1: for you on Musk to say, look, you know, I
Speaker 1: don't want to be the sensor dictating what is too
Speaker 1: harmful to be allowed and what is not, and then again,
Speaker 1: accepting extraordinary circumstances, I'm going to allow everything to be
Speaker 1: to be present. So I think it's a perfectly plausible position.
Speaker 1: It's not the only plausible position, but it seems to
Speaker 1: me one that makes a good deal of sense in
Speaker 1: light of the general assumptions that the courts and others
Speaker 1: have long held with regard to free speech broadly. So,
Speaker 1: the former chair of the FEC, Tom Wheeler, said that
Speaker 1: Musk is taking actions that highlight the need for the
Speaker 1: creation of a new regulator that would oversee the technology industry.
Speaker 1: So for Congress to pass legislation, you think that's a
Speaker 1: good idea or a bad idea, Well, it depends on
Speaker 1: what legislation, right. I mean. I'll give an example. Let's
Speaker 1: say somebody says, you know, yes, we think that it's
Speaker 1: bad to have statements that tend to encourage the killing
Speaker 1: of police officers, so there are to be regulation that
Speaker 1: prohibits that. Or we think it's bad to have statements
Speaker 1: that say insulting things about particular racial groups or particular
Speaker 1: religious groups. Well, that regulation would violate the First Amendment.
Speaker 1: We're not now in the category of free speech ethics,
Speaker 1: in the field of actual First Amendment law, and we
Speaker 1: know that that regulation would violate the First Amendment. If
Speaker 1: the proposal and doesn't sound at all like what the
Speaker 1: FT chair is talking about. But if the proposal is,
Speaker 1: let's require platforms not to discriminate based on viewpoint, Let's
Speaker 1: require them to host speech without regard to viewpoint, kind
Speaker 1: of like a phone company is required to basically hope
Speaker 1: stall paying customers and can't shut down your phone line
Speaker 1: because it doesn't like the viewpoints you're expressing using it. Well,
Speaker 1: that's a different story. I'm not sure that would be unconstitutional,
Speaker 1: although one can argue whether it is or isn't it,
Speaker 1: whether it's a good idea or not. Or Some people
Speaker 1: are saying the regulations should be that platforms should have
Speaker 1: the power to decide whether to block certain things, and
Speaker 1: some will say will block a lot of things, Some
Speaker 1: like maybe Elon Musk's Twitter, will say will block very little.
Speaker 1: But what they should do is they should disclose it.
Speaker 1: They should disclose for the public all their editing decisions
Speaker 1: you know, that might be constitutional, might even be a
Speaker 1: good idea, although there are possible interpretation problems as well.
Speaker 1: So the fact is that when it comes to speech,
Speaker 1: there are some kinds of permissible regulations. We haven't even
Speaker 1: touched on, things like regulations with regard to liabel or
Speaker 1: regulations with regard to true threat of violence and the like.
Speaker 1: There lots of regulations that would be impermissible, so it's
Speaker 1: hard to talk about whether there should be regulation in
Speaker 1: the abstract. You need to know what exactly is. The
Speaker 1: biggest change that's expected is re platforming of accounts that
Speaker 1: Twitter banned after they were used to harass, or incite
Speaker 1: violence or spread misinformation. And he also said that he
Speaker 1: would be cautious with permanent bands and that time outs
Speaker 1: would be better. I just want your take on that. Well, again,
Speaker 1: it all depends on exactly what we're talking about. So,
Speaker 1: for example, you said it accounts that would harass, that
Speaker 1: that incite violence, or that spread misinformation. So those are
Speaker 1: very different things harass. I'm actually writing an article about this.
Speaker 1: It's a term that doesn't have a really clear legal definition,
Speaker 1: or rather it has lots of different definitions in different contexts.
Speaker 1: Under some state laws, harassment means, among those things, physical misconduct,
Speaker 1: but also threats of violence. And you know, threats of
Speaker 1: violence are constitutionally unprotected. Platforms don't have to take them down,
Speaker 1: but I think we can plausibly say that if something
Speaker 1: actually threatens violence, it's a crime, and the platforms ought
Speaker 1: to take it down. On the other hand, sometimes you
Speaker 1: will use harass to mean saying really mean things about
Speaker 1: someone and doing so repeatedly in a way that makes
Speaker 1: this person feel kind of insulted and set upon. Well,
Speaker 1: all right, you could call that harass, but it's also
Speaker 1: you could call it criticism, you could call it condemnations.
Speaker 1: So I'd need to know a lot more if you're
Speaker 1: asking whether some particular account that was guilty of harassment
Speaker 1: ought to be thenned, I'd lead needs a lot know
Speaker 1: a lot more about what that harassment incite violence. Well,
Speaker 1: it means incitement in the First Amendment sense of speech
Speaker 1: that is intended to and likely to cause imminent illegal conduct. Well, again,
Speaker 1: that's constitutionally unprotective, and maybe Twitter would remove it once
Speaker 1: it concludes that it's constitutionally unprotected. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: often people use insight loosely, which basically just in the
Speaker 1: sense of tending to lead some people, almost always a
Speaker 1: tiny fraction of all readers, towards violence. And again you
Speaker 1: might ask, well, what do you do with your garden
Speaker 1: account to harshly condemns the police, calls them an occupying army,
Speaker 1: says no justice, no piece, praises rioters and looters and
Speaker 1: the like. Is that incitement of violence against the police
Speaker 1: or incitement of writing that I'm a looting Well, you know,
Speaker 1: h it could be called that in ordinary English. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure that that's an account that should be banned
Speaker 1: in those kinds of situations. And then you say misinformation.
Speaker 1: The problem is misinformation according to whom right, One of
Speaker 1: the problems is a lot of times people have a
Speaker 1: dispute about what is accurate information and what is misinformation.
Speaker 1: What are accurate allegations about counter Biden's laptop and which
Speaker 1: ones were not? What we're accurate allegations about whether President
Speaker 1: fromp colluded with the Russians in s and which we're not.
Speaker 1: So I'm not sure that a company such as Twitter
Speaker 1: should be making decisions of this account should be banned
Speaker 1: because it's misinformation, because it may just be that it's
Speaker 1: information that Twitter doesn't like or the Twitter's owners don't like.
Speaker 1: Then there's a separate question of once you conclude something
Speaker 1: ought to be locked in some measure, should it be
Speaker 1: a permanent block or should be a temporary block. That's
Speaker 1: this time out question. That's also a separate issue and
Speaker 1: may depend a lot on the on the nature of
Speaker 1: the speech that's involved. Must take in charge of Twitter
Speaker 1: and making changes, Will it change how we define free speech? Well, first,
Speaker 1: a lot depends on what changes he actually makes. We
Speaker 1: now are hearing the kind of changes he's interested in making.
Speaker 1: But of course, no battle plan survives contact with the enemy.
Speaker 1: We'll see in some months or maybe even some years
Speaker 1: as to what Twitter actually ends up to it. Second,
Speaker 1: of course, on one hand, free speech is a philosophical concept.
Speaker 1: People have been discussing it for hundreds of years, of
Speaker 1: some measure thousands of years, but at least the current
Speaker 1: debate about it dates back to the sixteen hundreds or
Speaker 1: seventeen hundreds in England. Current American debate dates back to that.
Speaker 1: So as a result of the policy that Twitter implements
Speaker 1: or Facebook implements is not something that is a philosophical
Speaker 1: matter should affect our definitions of speech. But as a
Speaker 1: practical matter, I do think that a lot of times
Speaker 1: people kind of take their cues about the meaning of
Speaker 1: a concept based on what is actually allowed. So if
Speaker 1: indeed platforms routinely banned certain kinds of speech on the
Speaker 1: grounds that, well, that's not free speech, it's hate speech,
Speaker 1: which is a legal matter, that's a non sequitor because
Speaker 1: so called hate speech is generally protected free speech. But
Speaker 1: imagine enough platforms say that, Imagine enough platforms say well,
Speaker 1: that's not free speech, it's misinformation. Then maybe indeed, over time,
Speaker 1: people will get used to it, and people will come
Speaker 1: to assume that will of course it's not free speech
Speaker 1: because we see that it's already prohibited by these influential entities.
Speaker 1: So it's possible. It's also possible that maybe platforms decisions
Speaker 1: try to sense of things will backfire and we will
Speaker 1: remind people that this is free speeches, just free speech,
Speaker 1: that platforms are wrongly forbidding. So it's really hard to
Speaker 1: tell how public attitudes towards these kinds of concepts will
Speaker 1: evolve as a result of private corporations decisions. Thanks Eugene,
Speaker 1: that's Professor Eugene Ballack of US law school. Former President
Speaker 1: Donald Trump is appealing in New York Judes ruling holding
Speaker 1: him in contempt of court and imposing a ten thousand
Speaker 1: dollar fine each day for failing to comply with this
Speaker 1: subpoena in the Attorney General Civil fraud investigation. In more
Speaker 1: than six million pages of corporate records handed over, only
Speaker 1: ten documents were Trump's Joining me is Eric Larson Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: Joining me is Eric Larson Bloomberg legal reporter, for failing
Speaker 1: to comply with this subpoena. So, for those who may
Speaker 1: have been living under a rock, tell us about what
Speaker 1: the a G Is investigating. Sure, this is an investigation
Speaker 1: that started in two thousand nineteen looking into the Trump organization,
Speaker 1: the use of asset valuations over the years for some
Speaker 1: of its biggest assets, and whether or not those valuations
Speaker 1: were manipulated in any way to give Trump better terms
Speaker 1: on things like bank loans or insurance or even task
Speaker 1: refunds and things like that. And this investigation started after
Speaker 1: Trump's longtime lawyer Michael Cohen testified for Congress and alleged
Speaker 1: all kinds of wrongdoing at the Trump Boards. So the
Speaker 1: Attorney General, Leticia James opened the investigation at that time
Speaker 1: issued a bunch of subpoenas, I mean, ultimately had to
Speaker 1: go to court to enforce those subpoenas because the Trump
Speaker 1: organization disagreed with their validity. So that's how this court
Speaker 1: case got started, and that's that investigation is obviously ongoing.
Speaker 1: Have Trump and the Trump Organization turned over documents? Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's are two very different questions, because the Trump organization
Speaker 1: ultimately was ordered to comply with the subpoena and has
Speaker 1: been doing so. Obviously there's still this agreement about that,
Speaker 1: but they have turned over more than six million pages
Speaker 1: of documents. Dozens of employees and former employees, you know,
Speaker 1: have searched their records and been deposed under oaths and
Speaker 1: things like that. But as for Trump, you know, the
Speaker 1: earlier subpoenas to the Trump Organization and everyone else had
Speaker 1: turned over some documents that were Trumps essentially, but but
Speaker 1: only ten. So at the six million pages, only ten
Speaker 1: documents were actually from Trump himself, who is you know,
Speaker 1: the leader of the company. So in December um the
Speaker 1: Attorney General issued a subpoena to Trump himself for records
Speaker 1: and information in his possession, as well as his testimony.
Speaker 1: You may recall that that Trump and also his son
Speaker 1: Don Jr. And Ivanka Trump, who has also received subpoenas,
Speaker 1: they all challenged the subpoena for their testimony. They lost
Speaker 1: on that they were ordered to be deposed. They've appealed
Speaker 1: and that is happening separately. But what they didn't challenge
Speaker 1: was the subpoena for Trump's records. So it was understood
Speaker 1: and expected that the former president would be handing over
Speaker 1: some records of his own in his possession related to
Speaker 1: these various asset valuations by March thirty one. That was
Speaker 1: the deadline that was agreed by the Attorney General and Trump,
Speaker 1: and it was ordered by the court. So March thirty
Speaker 1: one came, and instead of complying in full as he
Speaker 1: was ordered to do, he instead filed a sixteen page
Speaker 1: what the judge described as a boiler plate objections to
Speaker 1: the subpoena for records that he had already agreed to
Speaker 1: comply with um and an affirmation by his lawyer stating
Speaker 1: that there were no records. They've looked and there were not.
Speaker 1: So that's where we ended up with this content of
Speaker 1: court decision. A lawyer for the A G Flag concerns
Speaker 1: about hard copy records that should be searched in file
Speaker 1: cabinets on two floors of Trump Tower, a storage closet
Speaker 1: near Trump's office, and an off site location that seems
Speaker 1: awfully specific. How did they even know about those locations
Speaker 1: and that there might be documents there. Well, they would
Speaker 1: have learned about this from their investigations so far. You know,
Speaker 1: they've gotten uh from all of their interviews with other
Speaker 1: employees and just from looking at the documents that have
Speaker 1: been turned over. I'm sure they have a very good
Speaker 1: idea of how the records are stored. Um, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of hard copy records that go into a series
Speaker 1: of filing cabinets, I think they said on the twenty
Speaker 1: five and twenty six floors of Trump Tower. There's also
Speaker 1: a storage closet outside of Trump's office where some records
Speaker 1: are stored, and then of course an off site location,
Speaker 1: which is not unusual. But basically, what the judge determined
Speaker 1: was that if Trump is going to stay and there
Speaker 1: are no records, that it needs to be done with
Speaker 1: more than just saying that, you know that that was clearly,
Speaker 1: in the judges view, did not comply with his order
Speaker 1: to follow up with the subpoena, so he did find
Speaker 1: him in contempt. Of course, said that it just was
Speaker 1: not nearly enough just to raise these objections at this point,
Speaker 1: that it was too late. He'd already agreed to comply
Speaker 1: about his subpoena um and then instead of doing so,
Speaker 1: filed some objects that should have been filed earlier, and
Speaker 1: then just made up sort of a blanket statement by
Speaker 1: his lawyer that there were no records around. So the
Speaker 1: judge that you need to be much more specific. You
Speaker 1: need to tell me exactly where you searched, exactly what
Speaker 1: you searched, exactly when you searched it, and who searched it,
Speaker 1: and then maybe you'll be in compliance with the court
Speaker 1: order and you'll no longer be in contempt. But until
Speaker 1: then he's in content of court and is approving a
Speaker 1: ten tho dollar a day fine. So his lawyer said,
Speaker 1: President Trump does not email, he does not chext message,
Speaker 1: and he has no work computer at home or anywhere else.
Speaker 1: So is she saying these documents just don't exist? Right?
Speaker 1: His lawyer, Elena Habba at the hearing on Monday where
Speaker 1: Trump was found in contempt, but she guaranteed to the
Speaker 1: judge verbally that she had personally looked in all of
Speaker 1: these places and that she had actually flown down to
Speaker 1: Florida and met with Trump at Mara Lago to interview
Speaker 1: her client about these records to determine if there were
Speaker 1: any responsive records. And she guaranteed to the court that
Speaker 1: she had done all of these searches personally and that
Speaker 1: no responsive records were found. And the Trump said there
Speaker 1: were no records that were found. Obviously, that did not
Speaker 1: cut it with the judge. He said, that's saying this
Speaker 1: to me now in court is a lot different than
Speaker 1: explaining this in the sworn affidavit. And by the way,
Speaker 1: the judge says, why don't we just get a sworn
Speaker 1: affidavit from Trump himself. He didn't end up ordering anything
Speaker 1: like that, but he said in court, I just can't
Speaker 1: take your word for it. We need to have something
Speaker 1: much more detailed explaining why there are no records from
Speaker 1: Donald J. Trump responsive to all of these huge asset valuations,
Speaker 1: some of his key assets at the company that he's
Speaker 1: at the head of. So the judge wants something much
Speaker 1: more concrete. Do you think that if the lawyer signed
Speaker 1: an affidavit swearing to what she said in court, that
Speaker 1: would suffice that my takeaway that the judge you know,
Speaker 1: ested that that is something that would bring them into compliance.
Speaker 1: It's another question whether or not the Attorney General would
Speaker 1: you know, accept that or believe that. You know, they
Speaker 1: did indicate that during these hours of arguments and court
Speaker 1: that you know, they just sort of find it a
Speaker 1: little hard to believe that. You know, as I mentioned,
Speaker 1: the guy running this company does not have any records
Speaker 1: that are responsive compared to the six million pages that
Speaker 1: have been handed over by the company and everyone else. So,
Speaker 1: you know, Miss Hobba did make the point, of course
Speaker 1: that that Trump does not use a computer. But nevertheless,
Speaker 1: the Attorney General believes that there may be responsive documents anyway,
Speaker 1: whether it's hard copies of calendars or other documents that
Speaker 1: he received and put away in a filing can or
Speaker 1: something you know like that. But his lawyer just you know,
Speaker 1: pointed out that even the text messages of his children
Speaker 1: had already been turned over and searched, and that none
Speaker 1: of those text messages were to Donald Trump. She made
Speaker 1: that point to say, he doesn't even text with his
Speaker 1: own kids. But you know, as the judge said, put
Speaker 1: it in writing, put your name on it, and we'll
Speaker 1: see if that brings you the compliance. So Trump is
Speaker 1: filing an appeal, what are his chances? Well, that appeal
Speaker 1: is just not surprising. The lawyer said that she would
Speaker 1: be filing an appeal as soon as the written order hit,
Speaker 1: and that happened yesterday afternoon. So I spoke with I'm
Speaker 1: a gentleman who's not involved in the case, but who
Speaker 1: is a former prosecutor in California and a former stake
Speaker 1: board judge, and he said that these kinds of contempt
Speaker 1: orders and finds are generally upheld on appeal because the
Speaker 1: appellate courts, you know, give a lot of deference to
Speaker 1: judges to determine the best way to enforce compliance with
Speaker 1: their poor orders. That these trial judges, they're the ones
Speaker 1: who have all of the fact in the possession for
Speaker 1: all of these these cases, and that a contempt finding
Speaker 1: is very fact specific, and so they just leave it
Speaker 1: to the judges most for the most part, to determine
Speaker 1: when someone is in contempt and the issue fine. So
Speaker 1: I think it would be fairly hard, would be my guest,
Speaker 1: to get out of contempt finding like this, given the
Speaker 1: way the judge felled out exactly in his order how
Speaker 1: Trump came to not be in compliance with the order
Speaker 1: and the amount of time that Trump had to previously
Speaker 1: raise the concerns instead of waiting until after the March
Speaker 1: thirty first deadline. So we'll see where that goes. But
Speaker 1: for right now, it's the contempt order is in place
Speaker 1: and he's currently accruing this ten thousand dollars a day.
Speaker 1: Like I said, the judge also ordered Cushman in Wakefield,
Speaker 1: a real estate services firm that was used by Trump,
Speaker 1: to comply with subpoenas. Have they been fighting subpoenas? You know,
Speaker 1: they had Pushman, wakes Build, have been cooperating, They had
Speaker 1: received subpoenas like a lot of other entities and businesses
Speaker 1: that had been involved with Trump organization over the years
Speaker 1: in the process of these huge appraisals, you know, law firms, engineers, architects,
Speaker 1: things like that. So this Cushman and Wakefiel was was complying,
Speaker 1: but at one point, says I think it seems they
Speaker 1: decided that it was going too far. The demands for
Speaker 1: documents were getting too broad for their liking, and they
Speaker 1: did finally go to court to try to wash the
Speaker 1: most recent subpoena, and the judge denied that and ordered
Speaker 1: them to to continue complying UM and actually added Pushman
Speaker 1: and Wakefield as a respondent to the case, which the
Speaker 1: company had also tried to prevent from happening. So, you know,
Speaker 1: this company was involved in three of the main assets
Speaker 1: Trump organization assets that are being scrutinized. There are a
Speaker 1: lot of assets things scrutinized, the three of them in particular,
Speaker 1: Cushman and Wakefield was involved in in appraisals I'm including
Speaker 1: Trump Golf Club in Los Angeles, property called Seven Springs,
Speaker 1: New York City, and the forty Wall Streets skyscraper downtown.
Speaker 1: UM and the a G lawyer pointed out at this
Speaker 1: court hearing that you know, evaluations had gone really kind
Speaker 1: of all over the like very quickly for some of
Speaker 1: these properties in a way that benefited the Trump organization,
Speaker 1: and that they want to see more records about how
Speaker 1: they came to value these assets and why they changed.
Speaker 1: Any idea when the AG is going to wrap up
Speaker 1: this investigation, I know she said that she's uncovered significant evidence. Yes,
Speaker 1: I got the hint, certain more than a hints, I
Speaker 1: guess that the AGES lawyer said at the hearing on
Speaker 1: Monday that some sort of enforcement action was likely soon
Speaker 1: with the Trump organization. So there is a statute of
Speaker 1: limitations concerned things like that. But the AGES lawyer even
Speaker 1: indicated um that after some enforcement action has taken that
Speaker 1: they might continue the investigation, and that they believe that
Speaker 1: the nature of some of the potential offenses would be
Speaker 1: sus that the offenses might have continued in a way
Speaker 1: that the statute of limitations wouldn't apply necessarily in their view.
Speaker 1: So I think we could see something fairly soon. And
Speaker 1: as you mentioned, Tish Jane him As the Attorney General,
Speaker 1: has already said that she has found significant evidence of
Speaker 1: potentially misleading asset value evaluations. She gave that in a
Speaker 1: preliminary report sort of trying to enforce these subpoenas and
Speaker 1: demands for testimony because they were putting up such a sight,
Speaker 1: James had to go to court to explain and really
Speaker 1: reiterate why the investigation was so necessary, and she put
Speaker 1: out some preliminary findings that seems to be potentially pretty serious.
Speaker 1: When you say enforcement actions, what does she mean? I
Speaker 1: thought she'd just bring a lawsuit against him well, I
Speaker 1: think those are one in one of the name. I
Speaker 1: assume that that is what he meant, but he just
Speaker 1: used the term enforcement actions. Um. I think that it's
Speaker 1: likely it could come in the form of a civil
Speaker 1: complaint accusing the company and potentially individuals of wrongdoing in
Speaker 1: relation to these asset valuations. Well more to come, as
Speaker 1: always with these Trump investigations. Now I want to go
Speaker 1: to a completely different subject, the mask mandates. It was
Speaker 1: a shock to a lot of the country and maybe
Speaker 1: the Biden administration as well, when a last week a
Speaker 1: Florida judge struck down the travel mask mandate. And this
Speaker 1: wasn't because of a lawsuit filed by the governor or
Speaker 1: state officials. It was because of a lawsuit filed by
Speaker 1: a former Wall Street banker who now lives in Idaho.
Speaker 1: Tell us what you found out. Yes, it was interesting.
Speaker 1: I can. I can confirm that we were, at least
Speaker 1: in the newsroom taken by surprise when this when this
Speaker 1: order hit, because it was not a case that we
Speaker 1: were frankly watching as closely as the one you mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: where Ron de Santis, the governor of Florida, was leading
Speaker 1: a multi state lawsuit in Florida, speeking to overturn the
Speaker 1: national math mandate for public transportation. Uh So, when when
Speaker 1: this hit, um, it was a surprise, and I had
Speaker 1: never actually heard of this organization that had filed the lawsuit,
Speaker 1: But as you said, it was, it was filed by
Speaker 1: a former Wall Street banker. Her name is Leslie Manukian.
Speaker 1: Uh She's fifty eight years old. She lives in a Standpoint,
Speaker 1: Idaho to ski resort town. But she used to work
Speaker 1: at Goldman Sacked in New York and London, and then
Speaker 1: went to a precursor company for Alliance Bernstein uh in
Speaker 1: London as well. She was in London for ten years
Speaker 1: and then around two thousands three, she retired at a
Speaker 1: fairly young age and moved back to her native Idaho
Speaker 1: to raise her child. And that is where she got
Speaker 1: into natural medicine and became anti vaccine and after the
Speaker 1: pandemic started anti mask even uh So, she founded a
Speaker 1: nonprofit organization called Health Freedom Defense Fund in with the
Speaker 1: specific aim of sewing over various mandates. Um. She also
Speaker 1: has a lawsuit pending in federal court against the Biden
Speaker 1: administration's vaccine mandate for federal employees. Lots of other lawsuits
Speaker 1: filed over that as well. Her is just one of them. Um.
Speaker 1: But at any rate, Um, a Trump appointed federal judge,
Speaker 1: as we've all heard by now, um ruled in favor
Speaker 1: of Minuchans nonprofit and vacated the mass mandate nationwide. Let
Speaker 1: me ask you this. Maybe you asked her this for
Speaker 1: an organization based in Idaho to file a lawsuit in Florida,
Speaker 1: was she formed shopping for this particular judge or for
Speaker 1: odd conservative judge. Well, I'm sure that she would say
Speaker 1: no to that. I did speak with some some experts
Speaker 1: who think that that was clearly potentially something that was
Speaker 1: going on there. Um. You know, even uh with all
Speaker 1: of those states joining together to file a lawsuits. You know,
Speaker 1: they filed it in Florida, so um, it could have
Speaker 1: been any of the states where they filed it, but
Speaker 1: they saw it there. But you know, it's not difficult
Speaker 1: for a nonprofit based in any state to find some
Speaker 1: plaintift to work with their lawyers to establish a right
Speaker 1: to do in any other state. That's just kind of
Speaker 1: I suppose the nature of the federal court system. But
Speaker 1: she definitely got lucky with that judge. I guess you
Speaker 1: could say Thanks so much. Eric. That's Bloomberg Legal reporter
Speaker 1: Eric Larson, and that's it for this edition of The
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Law Show. Remember you can always get the latest
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Speaker 1: b m. Wall Street Time. I'm June Grosso and you're
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